French actor-writer-director Nicolas Bedos is to stand trial for alleged sexual assault after being released from police custody on Thursday (June 22) evening following an incident in a Parisian nightclub.
Bedos entered police custody on Wednesday (June 21) after a woman filed a complaint claiming that Bedos drunkenly touched her inappropriately during a night out in early June.
According to his lawyer Julia Minkowski, Bedos has no memory of the incident. She said in a statement to press that “such a gesture, which he has no recollection of, and which would have occurred on the dance floor of a nightclub, could only have been accidental under the influence of inebriation”.
Minkowski added that Nicolas Bedos had “apologised to the plaintiff” and that the filmmaker “does not wish to doubt the word of the complainant, who describes an inappropriate gesture of a few seconds over her jeans”.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement that after Bedos’ police custody was extended overnight “for the purposes of the investigation”, he “was handed a summons by a judicial police officer on June 22 to stand trial in early 2024 for sexual assault in a state of manifest intoxication.” According to French law, he could face up to five years of imprisonment and a fine of €75,000.
Bedos is a well-known face in front of the camera in France and has also directed several films that have played at Cannes including the French Riviera-set mystery thriller Mascarade in 2022, spy parody OSS 117: From Africa With Love in 2021 and romance La Belle Epoque starring Daniel Auteuil and Fanny Ardant in 2019, all out of competition.
La Belle Epoque was both a critical and box office success, selling upwards of 1.2 million tickets and earning the film 11 Cesar nominations and wins for original screenplay, supporting actress and production design.
Bedos has just finished directing Prime Video series Alphonse starring Jean Dujardin and produced by Alain Goldman which is set to premiere on the streamer later in the year.
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